Top marks for Salthill student in Leaving Cert

Galway schools 'very happy' with this year's results

A young student from Salthill was one of just six people in the country to achieve eight H1 grades when Leaving Certificate results were announced yesterday.

Lorcan Mulkerrin (17 ) of Salthill, a student of Yeats College for the past two years, got top marks yesterday. The youngest of a family of five, he now plans follow in the footsteps of two older siblings and study medicine in Trinity College Dublin.

Across Galway city and county a total of 2,980 students — 1,515 girls and 1,465 boys — sat this year's Leaving Cert.

Overall, Galway schools reported being very happy with the results achieved by students in this year's State examinations. In Yeats, along with Lorcan Mulkerrin's outstanding results another student, Matthew Laffey, received seven H1 grades, and a total of 10 students received more than 570 points.

"We're really happy with how things went today," said Sinead Caslin-Cregg of Yeats College. "We had a lot of smiling faces this morning."

Academic success

In the Dominican Convent, Taylor's Hill, principal Alan Kinsella said it was "a great day" for the Leaving Cert pupils.

"The students are very happy totting up their points," Mr Kinsella added. "We had students getting very high points and overall they did very well."

Coláiste Iognáid principal Fr Shane Daly said the students were "very happy" with their results, with most having achieved their individual goals in the exam.

"The majority of students are very happy, and the result for us is when they step out the door is that they have achieved what they set out to achieve," Fr Daly said. "They have done us proud and they have kept up a long tradition of academic success in the school."

Across the country, a total of 57,149 students sat the Leaving Cert exams this year.